I'm a long-time Forbes and ForbesWoman writer. I cover entertainment, celebrities, trends, models, and female-oriented stories. My first book, "Can't Think Straight: A Memoir of Mixed-Up Love" was featured on The Today Show, The Joy Behar Show, in Marie Claire, The New York Post, The New York Times, the AOL home page, and other outlets. I have also written for New York, The Village Voice, The Frisky, Marie Claire, Arrive, and the New York Post. I've appeared as an entertainment expert on shows like Inside Edition, Entertainment Tonight, and E! Television. I graduated from The Columbia School of Journalism. Please visit me at kiriblakeley.com or Writings of Kiri Blakeley on Facebook or Twitter: @KiriBlakeley.

3/10/2011 @ 10:54AM5,300 views

Meet The First Woman Charlie Sheen Tweeted

I confess that the night Charlie Sheen debuted on Twitter I, like a million other disturbed people, was following. Not because I’m a fan, but because like many others, I wanted to see if he was going to implode on Twitter the way he’d been imploding on more traditional mediums.

After a few tweets, he sent a shout out to @natashaleggero. She was the first woman (and third person) he tweeted, saying “I’ll take it!” in response to her “Charlie Sheen is our Egypt.” She then joked that ten years in Hollywood finally paid off by getting a tweet from Sheen.

Curious, I looked her up. Guess what? She wasn’t a porn star. Turns out Natasha Leggero is a popular comedian who is a Chelsea Lately regular, recurring Reno 911! actress, and who has a comedy album and Comedy Central special both debuting this month. She’s also the voice of Callie Maggotbone on Comedy Central’s Ugly Americans. Oh, and Sheen’s three-word tweet gained her 5000 new followers.

Here, Natasha and I talk comedy, pretty girls, how Twitter is ruining her life and, of course, Charlie Sheen.

KB: Why were you one of the first people Charlie Sheen sent a shout out to on Twitter?

NL: He saw that I sarcastically called him “our Egypt.” I feel like if people in America could react with the same fervor that they do with him to, say, what’s going on in Afghanistan, we could have world peace. Charlie saw that joke and thought it was funny.

KB: Everybody was trying to get him to respond to them. Were you surprised he responded to you?

NL: I was surprised, but it made it seem like he had good taste in comedy, which is surprising considering Two and a Half Men.

KB: Then you tweeted, “Mr. Sheen you are my inspiration!” I hope that was a joke.

NL: I was referring to my album, Coke Money, which has a picture of me with a bloody nose and a pile of coke. I was baiting him.

KB: There’s a lot of funny people on Twitter getting TV or book deals. What’s your take on this?

NL: For comedians, we’re all kind of tweeting our thoughts instead of spending time developing them. You can gauge how good a joke might be by how many times it gets retweeted, but it takes discipline to go back through the tweets and then develop jokes from them. Usually [Twitter] just wastes my time. It’s sort of ruining my life.

KB: How would you describe your comedy?

NL: If Audrey Hepburn came back today, and how pissed she would be.

KB: It used to be that pretty girls weren’t allowed to be funny, and you are very pretty. Has that held you back?

NL: Comedy is just one of the many professions that women are taking over. But we all need to work now. The women’s movement ruined a permanent vacation. There used to be a lot of attractive women doing comedy, but they were a little more afraid to be attractive. They’d be talking about how they can’t get a date, but audiences are more savvy now. It’s like, if you can’t get a date, you must have a really vile personality! My comedy isn’t about being attractive—it’s about how the bar of dumb seems so low right now, and I desperately want to raise the bar of dumb just a tiny bit.

KB: Who is your comic idol, besides Charlie Sheen?

NL: John Waters was my first comedy icon. Woody Allen, Mae West, Zach Galifianakis, Patton Oswalt, Louie C.K. And Sarah Silverman, she’s great. I saw her the other night, she has all new material and it’s nice to see someone still writing.

KB: As opposed to just tweeting? I noticed that Charlie tweeted to Sarah Silverman too.

NL:And Paul Scheer. Like I say, he has good taste in comedy—either him or his assistant, whoever is doing the tweeting.

KB: Do you think a woman could get away with this level of public meltdown and bad behavior and yet be considered a folk hero by a certain segment of the population?

NL: I don’t think a woman could get away with that. In a way, it is inspiring when you hear him talk though, like how he demanded more money. What’s stopping anyone from demanding more money? I don’t want to date him though. I never thought I’d empathize with Denise Richards, but he must have been a nightmare to live with.

KB: I have a feeling we will see him on Oprah in six months, crying and doing his mea culpa.

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